high rise hearts ☆ lifesteal smp au

𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐘𝐖𝐀𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐒 ✧✫

𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲: normal oneshot (child au)
𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀: none
𝘁𝘄: mentions/discussions of abuse, neglect, divorce
𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝘆: n/a
𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁: child!pmc sneaking out to talk, ft slightly unreliable narrator

─── ⋅☆⋅ ───

𝐏𝐎𝐕: clown

In the deep inky dark of the tiny bedroom in the small apartment in an ordinary sleepy neighborhood in Brooklyn, a little Clown tossed and turned in his warm bed, failing to sleep, waiting for the footsteps of his mother to stop echoing from behind the door and to recede down and into the street and into the car and far away from him for the rest of the night.
He did not want her to know what he intended to do this very night, for if she did in fact know, he would surely die, killed within by the hands of his wrathful mother, and so he waited and he worried, pulling his blanket up like he was a corpse in a morgue whenever he froze in the tundra-like air of his room, the tundra a place he had heard about only in schoolbooks and stories, and the morgue a place of which he did not know at all, but then he would push down his blanket as if he boiled in a cooking pot.
Sick of attempting to regulate his temperature, he rolled over onto his side and carefully cracked one left eye open like a soft shelled egg, deep red yolk darting around in white as it focused itself to squint at the bright red numbers pasted on his digital clock which informed him that the time was 1:43 AM, much too early for a reasonable child to be up, of which he was not, and he was in fact running a little bit late, even, and so he opened his other eye, none too fast, and mentally began to run through what he needed to do.
The young boy rolled out of bed, slowly and cautiously as he feared for his mother's unexpected return at all times, shifting the blankets off his frail figure and exposing him to the uncomfortably cold air of his room, chilled by a soft breeze poking its way beneath a crack in his bedroom window, sliding past the blinds and blowing around him, pricking at his skin beneath the thin cotton fabric of his pajamas, and he yawned and rubbed the sleep from his heavy eyes so they felt less weighted down, as tonight it felt as if five-pound weights were tied to his lashes, constantly dragging them downwards and trying to force him back into the quiet bliss of sleep, of which he could not afford any longer, not with how late he currently was.
He heard of no further noise from downstairs that signaled the return of his mother, and as such he tiptoed across the dull gray carpet of his room, bare feet catching the pale bluish-white light that drifted in from the small gaps in the closed blinds covering both his windows, sinking into the floor slightly as if it was a layer of soft fabric snow, and he made his way to one of the piles of unwashed clothes that did not let out as pungent an odor and chose himself a sweater with which to cover himself from the cold, and pushed his feet into waiting slippers by the foot of his bed, feeling the inside fluff between his toes warm them just a little.
To complete his preparations, he silently crept to his open window and lifted the blinds with one hand while gripping tightly its handle with the other, and he inched it open, incredibly slowly but surely, placing such effort into his arm that a single bead of cold sweat ran down his forehead, praying that the window would remain as silent as he, of which it thankfully did today, and he praised whatever gods were responsible for it.
With a final surveying glance across his room, he lifted one foot and raised it onto the ledge of his window, painted clean white and marred with the very faint outlines of previous expeditions, previous slippers, then lifted his other foot and found himself crouched on the ledge, peering out onto a fire escape that looked the least bit trustworthy, the first true steps of his journey, and the brick wall of an adjacent building which created an alleyway for the fire escape to reside in.
The dim moon, once content to simply poke through the empty strips of his blinds as if mimicking the bars of a prison cell, now streamed freely through the open window, casting relief upon the little Clown's face, exposing sharp features, a faint dusting of freckles upon his sunken cheeks, glittering red-gold eyes that lively darted around, taking in the familiar sight, and an irregular purpling spot that blotted the area of his face around his left eye, almost as if someone had smushed a blueberry pie on his face and left it there, although that was far from the cause, and deep black hair floated freely in waves over his forehead, casting the top half of his face in shadow, and although he looked well enough for a child, he would oftentimes remark on how his mother hated it so.
He allowed himself to glance downwards, peering through the grated floor at the concrete sidewalk two stories below him, and nervousness began to bubble in his brain, remembering that this would likely be the riskiest part of the way, so with overwhelming caution he lowered one slippered foot, then another, onto the thin metal platform, moving at the pace of a snail, and he was rewarded with a lack of creaking once the fire escape received his weight.
He shut his window carefully, squinting at the darkened alley around him and its far-reaching shadows, as the moon provided very little in the way of illumination, so he was forced to rely on the single streetlamp placed just at the mouth of the little passage and what little light got through the crack between the two buildings in order to feel his way about the fire escape.
He blindly reached out a hand towards a shadow shaped like a railing, and grasped it for support, feeling the rusty iron of it flake and chip beneath his smooth palm, and dutifully followed it to the ladder set in front of him, its first rung raised slightly above the platform while the rest of its body sank below onto the second story of the fire escape.
He now reached out his other hand and felt for the first rung of the ladder, and after a bit of groping about in the darkness his hand snagged the correct bit of metal, and so he freed himself of the railing and grasped it with his leftover hand, and then he reached out one foot and then another, settling both carefully on the rungs just below, calculating his steps so as not to fall, treading lightly so as not to make noise.
It was near the last rung of the ladder that Clown placed his foot down ever so gently, and as his weight leaned on the metal rung it squeaked a little, the sound brassy and loud in the way metal rubs against metal, and he froze, worrying once again, this time wishing he could be free of the fire escape and onto the safe solid ground below, and so he hurried his pace just a little, finding himself now on the second floor of the fire escape.
He settled himself on the platform and found another railing, guiding himself to the next ladder that would take him down, finally, to the sidewalk, and so he repeated the same process, just a tad quicker this time, and the ladder did not creak, so he lowered himself onto the grimy, slightly damp with night drizzle sidewalk that sat beside his apartment building.
He now faced the graffitied brick wall of the building next to his own, bright symbols he did not understand dulled and tinted light blue by the fog of the early morning, and he also faced the giant plastic dumpsters which lined the walls and stank of the refuse of the apartment's many other residents, creating a maze of large green bricks that Clown had to navigate to leave the alley.
He stepped around the first dumpster, brushing against the large flopping lid of a second, then scooted around it to push between two more, and then he was free of the alley and left to stand alone on the street, alone except for the many parked cars lining both sides of the quiet road and a lonely pigeon dozing atop a streetlight at the edge of the adjacent block, one of many that now illuminated his familiar street in a bath of golden synthetic light.
He first turned left, his intended destination the small public park nearest his house, and in turn his meetup spot with his small group of friends, which consisted of two young boys named Leo and Minute, which he'd met by chance and eventually grown close to, his only true friends so far, and he remembered that he was late and that they would be there by now and it made him feel a little guilty to be treating them so, as they were the only people who bothered with being nice to him ever and he returned the favor by being late.
His steps were muffled by his floppy slippers, but now less cautious as he'd left the vicinity of his apartment, and they echoed through the empty street as he made his way down the block, then over a crosswalk labeled with faded white industrial paint, then turning a corner and walking a few more blocks forward, then he found himself at the fence of the little public park.
The park could scarcely fit into the definition, being only a small section of hardy grass and a tree or two, in its center a circle of stone bricks tinted reddish-gray and dotted with a single bench, streaked with dirt and the occasional pigeon crap dripping down its side, the entire thing holding the feeling of being entirely an accident and thus squeezed into the surrounding neighborhood last minute.
Just as he'd expected, Minute and Leo occupied the bench already, and they were immersed in whispering to each other words that Clown couldn't hear from where he stood, behind a low iron gate tipped with decorative spikes that separated the park from the sidewalk, and patchy foliage further separating him.
He decided that he didn't wish to waste time walking to the park's entrance on the other side of the block, where a rickety iron gate swung open welcoming entry to patrons of the park, although it was supposed to be closed, because everyone had forgotten of its existence by now, everyone except for Clown, Minute and Leo, and so he instead lifted himself carefully over the fence, the cool metal pressing against his hands and legs briefly before he scooted over to the other side, rustling the bushes he stepped into.
"Clown, there you are!" came the voice of Minute, which was a strange combination of a yell and a whisper, carried to Clown over the hushed whistling of the wind, and he could see the boy's glowing eyes, bright white in color, piercing through the darkness and watching him struggle through the bushes towards them.
MinuteTech, as he was named, was a year older than he, with a similar shock of black hair to his own that was also somehow darker, pitch black like the night sky, and his ears were long and pointed like those of an elf's, which Clown thought fit him well like they fit no other, and his white eyes that shone like flashlights, which continued to observe him like those of a crow's searching for quarry, looking him up and down as he approached their bench and sat down beside Leo.
"Hey guys, sorry I'm late... my mum didn't leave till like 1:30," Clown informed them of the reason of his absence, accompanied by an apologetic smile to show he was truly sorry for having delayed, and the show of it worked as Minute and Leo offered their own forgiving smiles in return, knowing that sometimes being late was unavoidable.
"It's fine, we didn't really have anything planned tonight anyways," says Leo, who is a boy his age although slightly shorter, sporting fluffy white hair ringing his head and black eyes with white pupils, a feature unique to him, and those eyes flicked about and settled upon his face, scrutinized him and the blackish splotch marring his face, and they saw it and took it in differently than he did, the eyes displaying concern as he pointed it out: "Hey, you got a new bruise."
Leo lifts a pale hand, turning towards his friend and ever so gently brushing aside some of the unruly black hair to get a better look at the dark bruise extending over almost half his face, and the puffy eye that looked back at Leo with gratitude yet also resilience, and in that way defiance of the care that was no doubt to be offered to him.
"It's fine, my mum just got mad at me again yesterday..." replies Clown, trying his best not to let the freshly buried memories rise out of the metaphorical dirt and replay in his head, lowering Leo's hand away from his face with his own, utilizing the same gentleness, and brushing back his hair to again cover part of the bruise, although it did little good in covering the whole thing.
"Clown, you can't stay with her forever if she treats you like this- you should come over to my house, my parents won't mind, they never do..." and this time it is Minute that speaks to him, the same concern in Leo's gaze tinting his speech, the same worry for Clown that he feels he doesn't need, although he trails off at the last three words, giving them a saddened, faraway feeling, as if he wishes too, wishes that they might mind a little more than Clown's heard him say.
"I'll be fine, you've got enough on your hands with yourself, Min." Clown returns the favor of concern, as Minute's gaze has drifted away too, somewhere down the street to his apartment, thinking of his own home, and he rubs his eyes again as he's already tired, having stolen only a few moments of sleep last night from the tears that had plagued him that time his mother granted him yet another punishment for his misdoings.
"Well, I wouldn't mind taking you with me, I'm going to Mrs. Arbor's tonight if you want to come?" Leo offers with a kind smile, hands resting on his lap, bouncing a little as he raises first one knee, then the other, having always been a little fidgety, and Clown knows what he means when he says it because he's told him of the many homes he bounces between while having none of his own.
"No, no it's fine, it'd be harder to find a place for two people to stay and some of them might not let us in... I- appreciate it, but I'll be okay staying with Mum- I couldn't leave her anyways, I love her, you know?" Clown looks down at his feet, which sway idly just above the ground, and consequently he misses the saddened looks Minute and Leo exchange with each other, full of the worry from before risen up to the surface as they think about what they could do to help their friend, knowing he'll accept none, although it was infinitely more worry than Clown could ever dream of his mother expressing towards him.